TablEdit Users Say:
"When I took up the guitar, just a couple of years ago, I really struggled to read music score. First I had to figure out which note I should play, and then I had to find it on the guitar keyboard. This two-step process was slowing down my learning and frustrating me. I was about to give up but a friend, who's a professional guitarist, suggested working with tablature and recommended your program. I downloaded a copy, listened to some tunes, decided which ones I liked, printed out the tab and learned them. It made learning enjoyable. TablEdit works for me!"
Bob Duncan - United Kingdom
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Tuning
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| The second tab of the "Instrument..." dialog deals with the instrument tuning assigned to the current module.
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| At the left of the dialog you'll find a "stack" of speaker icons with horizontal lines to the right of them. These represent the strings of the current instrument. Although the illustration at the right is for a standard, 6-string guitar, if another number of strings has been selected in the "Module" portion of the dialog this will, of course, be reflected here.
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| Left-clicking on any of the speaker icons (or the strings, themselves, for that matter) will cause the note to which it's set to sound. The note will sound longer if you keep the left mouse button held down. This is very handy for tuning your own instrument to the computer.
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| The name of the note to which the string is set displayed to the right of each string. Next to the note name, you'll find the octave number (according to the American system) displayed within square brackets.
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| Left-clicking on the small arrows to the right of these items allows you to raise or lower the pitch of the string. Keeping [Ctrl] held down while performing this operation will allow you to change the pitch of all of the strings in a single operation.
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| Further to the right, you'll find a combo box containing a variety of common (and a few uncommon) tunings. Selecting any of these will automatically alter the settings applied to the strings. If you should select a tuning not corresponding to the current number of strings, TablEdit will change this number after asking you for confirmation.
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| TablEdit can manage up to four user-defined tunings. The slots for these custom tunings are marked with an asterisk (*) and are located at the bottom of the list of pre-defined tunings. To add a custom tuning to the list, just modify the current tuning to the desired values and click on the custom slot you want it in while keeping [Ctrl] held down. The resulting dialog also allows you to specify a name for your tuning.
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| Below the tunings popup is a small box labeled "Capo". This allows any capo setting between 0 (no capo) and 15. By default, the addition of a capo affects both the pitch of MIDI playback and the note pitches of the standard notation. The fret numbers of the tablature remain unaffected. Care should be taken to adjust the "Key signature" to reflect the addition of the capo so that the correct accidentals will be used in the stave. If, for example, you've tabbed out a tune played in the key of C but have specified a capo at the second fret, you should enter a key signature of D major (two  's) as this is the key that the piece actually sounds in. There is, however, an exception to this. Tablature readers usually read the capo as if it were the nut of the instrument, notation readers do not. This means that the tablature reader considers the "playing" key of a tune rather than its "sounding" key. This can lead to some confusion if the two aren't the same, as in the example quoted above. To avoid this, there is a "Capo doesn't impact Notation" option in {File}{Options...}>Advanced That allows a capo to be applied without affecting the key used in the notation. If you select this option, a tune played in the key of A minor will also be notated in A minor irregardless of any applied capo position. Again, care should be taken to set the correct key (in this case A minor) in the "Key signature" dialog.
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| The chords deduced by the "Automatic Chord Diagram" (see Display options) function will remain in the actual playing key rather than being transposed to the playback key.
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| For an existing score, it's useful to be able to specify if the changes are to affect the notes (default) or the fingerings. If you select "Impact> Notes" (default), only the note values will be changed. If "Impact> Fingerings" is selected, the fingerings will be adjusted so that the sound output doesn't change.
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| [Tune] plays each string of the selected tuning successively, allowing you to tune your instrument to TablEdit. The slider to the left of the button allows you to adjust the speed of the palyback. It should be noted that if {Play}{Repeat} has been selected the sequence will be repeated until stopped by clicking on [Stop].
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| Since its beginnings, TablEdit has evolved to include instruments other than the standard, fretted instruments usually associated with a tablature program. The use of the software in connection with these instruments requires special comment.
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